“Oh look, there’s a tape measure inside my Christmas cracker!” exclaims that Timmy with the gammy leg. “I’m going to have so much fun measuring things,” he adds.

“And look, I’ve got some tiny nail clippers with blades that don’t quite meet. I can’t wait to groom myself,” mirthfully shrieks Tarquin. Not that it has any bearing on the story, but Tarquin’s a little prick.

Tarquin’s also got a big, fat head, which makes the paper hat tear slightly when he puts it on.

“Read your joke now Timmy, we bet it’s hilarious!” Everyone chants.

Timmy reads his joke and everyone falls about laughing, clutching their sides.

The End.

The point of this story is to illustrate how rubbish Christmas crackers usually are, and that no one likes Tarquin.

It needn’t be like this though. You see, we at Drinks by the Dram ascribe to the famous old adage I just made up: Booze is like the butter of liquids. Add it to stuff, and that stuff will be better. Having applied this to Advent Calendars, we set our sights on Christmas Crackers, and made Christmas good again with a range of booze-filled crackers to suit all tastes.

We put together sets of six Christmas crackers, each containing a handmade, wax-dipped 3cl “dram” samples of top-notch spirits. So have a butcher’s at our crackers filled with…

Whisky

More expensive (ergo better) whisky

Gin

Spirits and liqueurs and that.

Naturally, we’ve also filled each cracker with a flimsy paper hat, guaranteed to tear on hairstyles of even a vaguely bouffant nature, as well as a tasting note for the sample, and a terrible joke. The jokes are the kind the internet describes as “for clever people”, so you can feel all smug whilst reading a joke with a punchline which includes smart people words.

Our range of Christmas Crackers is widely available soon from retailers including Harvey Nichols, Amazon and many others, and available for pre-order now from Master of Malt.